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The Mandala

One day a young aspirant climbed high into the mountains to seek out a hermit Master who was known for his great wisdom and ability to teach. When he found him (which was strangely easy) and told him of his desire, the Master instantly agreed to accept him as a student. However, he first told the young man that he must prove his discipline and dedication by creating a Yantra Mandala. Then he disappeared, seemingly without a trace.

The young man set to work preparing the sands he would need to make the images of the Mandala (which took a week), however no sooner had he finished this part of the preparation than the Master suddenly reappeared and told him the colours were not pure enough. He told him to start again. Then disappeared again.

The young man began over, and again completed the preparations - sure this time that his colours were perfect. However, thye were not. Just as he had laid out the Mandala pattern, the Master again appeared claiming the tones were still not bright enough.

The young man began again. And again.

And again.

After each halting appearance the hermit would always disappeared, never staying to talk and only reappearing just as the young man was about to begin a new phrase. Of course, this was very ‘annoying’ to begin with, well, it was pretty annoying to middle with too, but as time went on the young man’s attitude to what he was doing slowly changed. Where at first he had looked upon the job as a task, even an obstacle, he had slowly learned to use it as a meditation. When he was finally allowed to begin the Mandala itself, he was surprised to find that his excitement was tinged with loss – a curious mix. So much so, that it was without disappointment when, just as he was completing the inner section, the old man appeared again and sent him back the beginning.

A thing that happened numerous times, throughout the creation of the whole Mandala.

Now during all this time, the young man was occasionally interrupted by others who sought the hermit. And he would tell them all that he knew of the old man. However, as his irritation at his progress became less and less, so did, it seemed, his understanding of the old hermit. In the end all he could say to the visitors was “stay and he will come”. Which his visitors often did, and though they seemed content to sit and chat while they waited, amiably asking the young aspirant many questions (which the young man answered as best he could), they never seemed to wait quite long enough to be present at the hermit's next visit.

And in this way, time turned.

Of course, given time all things pass and one day the young man (who was now not so young), looked down at his Mandala and saw that it was finished. This did not surprise him as he had become very attentive to it and knew always exactly where he was within it, but it did make him wonder what he should do next. So for the first time he stood up free from his task and curiously looked about. Wondering at what would come next.

He did not wonder long though, for the ability for attention that working on the Mandala had given him, left him great powers of concentration. He was able to notice all things with the same calm accuracy and instantly gazed, with no sense of time, at all in bemused yet familiar wonder.

And he gazed in this way at the next visitor who came up the mountain. The visitor asked the not-so-young-man if he was the Mandala Master who everyone had told him to come and see. When the not-so-young-man replied that he was not, and that the Master had been absent from these parts for approaching a year, the visitor refused to believe him, claiming that he knew the Master to be nearby for he had been seen only a few days before - dispensing his wisdom to a local man whilst putting the finishing touches to a Yantra Mandala.

The not-so-young-man started at this news, and his gaze dropped to the Mandala spread before them. In the silence that followed he heard his Master’s chuckle.

Sounding deep and true from within his own heart.

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